Archive for May, 2012

Update 2012-06-15: Louis Pellerin, one of the developers of Urban Turtle, pointed out that the recommended way to make this kind of customization is to first create a copy of the configuration file. This is important since the default files will be removed when uninstalling Urban Turtle as part of a future upgrade.

I recently downloaded the latest update to the agile board plugin to TFS from Urban Turtle.

The main feature this time is the possibility to have custom columns on the team board. Say for instance that I’ve added a “Ready for Test” state in my work item model:

To add a custom column we need to edit the configuration file for our process. The configuration files are stored on the TFS server at:

In my project I’m using the Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 process template. The first thing to do when customizing Urban Turtle is to copy the template you want to change and work in the copy (Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0.xml in this case). Since the name of the configuration is stored in the configuration file we also need to change the name inside the file.

Next I edit the Tast Board, Columns section and add a new state, “Ready For Test”:

Then save the xml file and refresh the web page and watch the board show the new “Ready For Test” state.

* Dynamic number of columns on the task board * Copy/duplicate work item * Story Point/Effort Burndown Chart

Improvements * New design: iteration/area side panel, column headers, card stacks, warning area as well as other work items and footer sections * Spanish and German versions of the MSF Agile 5.0 process template mapping file